New Portege Z830

[GloryField]

Is the i3 good enough or is the i5 a lot faster?

[z830guy]

Is the i3 good enough or is the i5 a lot faster?

Hi Gloryfield. I'm the wrong guy to ask, in a way. I bought an i7. But in another way, I might be the right guy. First, it all depends on your application. If you're mainly doing lightweight word-processing, email, and web-browsing, an i3 might get you buy well. But if you ever do any high-end-processing... Stuff that was slowing me down with the i5 slate that I was trying to use -- included

• Publishing anything complex with high-res graphics
• Rendering any high-res videos
• Multi-tasking lots of busy tabs or windows
• Handling long documents

and anything similar, then honestly, get the i7. It's like a *dream*. Snappy. Responsive. Makes you feel better at your job because you *feel* quicker.

[leggy]

It will depend on what you will be doing. As far as I know and heard from others, if your usage is limited to surfing, office works, watching videos then you should be good. If you are doing rendering or photo/video editing jobs then you may need a different machine because of the screen resolution, ram and SSD limitation with the Z83X models.

[SoundsGood]

Hey guys, I've never used an SSD before, so I have nothing to compare it to. So for those that have used this Toshiba, how does the standard (supposedly slow) SSD compare to a regular old-fashioned hard drive? Is this SSD slower than a regular hard drive? Is it the same speed? A little faster? A lot faster?

Thanks in advance...

[Apparition]

The typical hard drive has an access time of about 9ms whereas the ssd is at .01ms or some 90 times faster. It is remarkably noticeable, especially in start times. The new Z830 starts from the push of the button until the desktop appearing at 14 seconds and I have yet to tune it.

Someone once asked me to make a comparison to explain the speed of the SSD and I recall stating that it is almost like the computer knows your next move before you even hit the key...its just that fast.

To give you a real life example, I work with reports that are sometimes upwards around 6-9000 pages. These reports contain sensitive information that must be removed or 'redacted'. You redact information in Adobe Acrobat. With a typical hard drive and once you have highlighted the elements that require redacting, it could take upwards to 10 minutes. There have been many times people have believed the system froze and they rebooted.

With an SSD, it has never taken more than 15-20 secondfs for the EXACT same job.

[GloryField]

whats the difference between Z830 and Z835? Is Z830 only sold online at toshibadirect?

I was dead set on a Asus ux31 but there are too many people having issues with it. Now I'm trying to decide between Sony SA and Toshiba Z830/835

[alexUW]

By lookign at Toshibadirect and Bestbuy, I've concluded the differences between the z835 and z830 are listed below but not limited to:

z835 [lower tier]
--not customizable through retailer nor Toshiba [can still be customized by consumer]
--available in 2 formats [p330 BestBuy and ST8305 Toshiba, both preconfigured models; guessing difference is P330 has BestBuy PC App ?]
--i3 CPU only [dual-core]
--No Bluetooth
--No Fingerprint reader
--Windows 7 Home
--1 year standard warranty



z830 [higher tier]
--available in 3 formats: 1 customizable and 2 pre-configured
--i5 CPU or i7 CPU [both i5 and i7 are dual-core]
--bluetooth
--fingerprint reader
--Windows 7 Professional [Ultimate available]
--3 year standard warranty [only applies to pre-configured z830 models]


Toshiba Direct | Portege Laptops & Notebook Computers
Toshiba - Portégé Ultrabook Laptop / Intel® Core™ i3 Processor / 13.3" Display / 4GB Memory - Silver - Z835-P330
http://us.toshiba.com/computers/lapt...ailable-models


Hope that helps

[uniten]

There is actually one other difference which is kind of weird. The cheaper model has a TrueBrite Screen, while the more expensive model does not.

The configurable model lets you choose which one you want, and even though their text says TrueBrite is the upgraded screen and does not mention much about the other one..which makes you wonder which one is better :/

[PinoyBoy]

Thank you very much Uniten, Z830guy, Makryger, Alexmuw, and Series9Guy for your contribution to this unknown laptop. Sorry if I forgot to thank anyone else.

Has any of you done a clean install on one of these bad boys yet?

@Z830 guy, you said that this was your "fastest laptop" that you've owned.
Is it comparable to a 7200rpm HDD or is it significantly faster?
You did mention that it is also the "bottom of the heap", this has me worrying that it might be comparable to a HDD and how many of the reviews saying it is very slow for an SSD. I don't need it to be fast. Infact a 5400rpm HDD is perfectly fine for my use, but for the money I'm spending, I would expect it to be really good.

[hakkan]

Good! news: BestBuy updated Z835's price as 899 USD.
I think too many people asked about Z835 so they raised the price !

BUT!.. They have made a discount for Asus UX31. UX31 with i5 (2557), 256 GB SSD! is just 1.049 USD, its backordered but the price is excellent ! Just for 150 more we can get a i5-2557 + 256 GB SSD. Zenbook looks like a better choice for me.